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enElvis & The Man In Blackhttp://evidanceradio.com/home/reviews/2018/elvis-man-black
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<p><img alt="" src="/home/sites/default/files/reviews/images/evidancereview--elviscitadel.jpg" style="width: 550px; height: 440px;" title="Looking for Elvis-- photo by Jeremy Mimnagh"></p>
<p><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:14px;">Elvis &amp; The Man In Black</span></span></strong></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:14px;">Choreographers Laurence Lemieux / James Kudelka</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:14px;">The Citadel Ross Centre For Dance</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:14px;">Mimi Herrndorf Studio Theatre</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:14px;">May 2-5 &amp; 9-12 2018</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:14px;">Reviewed by Ted Fox</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">This double bill features works by noted choreographers Laurence Lemieux and James Kudelka. Lemieux's Looking For Elvis is a challenging work loosely based on Elvis Presley recordings and songs. Kudelka's The Man In Black is a tightly choreographed intensely danced work to Johnny Cash recordings of six&nbsp;songs written by others.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:14px;">Looking For Elvis&nbsp;</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:14px;">Choreographer Laurence Lemieux</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:14px;">Dancers&nbsp;Erin Poole,&nbsp;Christianne Ullmark,&nbsp;Daniel McArthur,&nbsp;Michael Caldwell,&nbsp;Tyler Gledhill,&nbsp;Luke Garwood,&nbsp;Andrew McCormack</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">Opens with the dancers walking around what could be an auditorium or rehearsal space complete with moveable lights.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">The dancers begin one by one walking into this space, seemingly assessing it, each other and us. Bright floor lights make their bodies indistinct. Each sits with the others in a line in front of these lights while one begins to explore a movement vocabulary.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">All isolated in their own space engrossed in the process of rehearsing their movements. Each does similar moves of long elongated movements of hands, arms and legs. In slow motion. Freezing occasionally into animated cutouts like jigsaw puzzle figures. Then come together in a short segment all making these same moves in synch with each other.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">Initially there is a hesitation in coming to interact with the others to create a piece. Awareness of eyes observing and assessing each other's moves. One scene has Christianne&nbsp;Ullmark smiling confidently doing her moves. One in group gives her a so so not bad facial&nbsp;reaction. Whereupon her face takes on a disgruntled look as she goes back into the watching group.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">Interesting that she wears an eye-catching springlike green dress. The other woman in the piece, Erin Poole, is in black blending in and disappearing in the group.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">How conscious are they of us observing them? Do they adjust according to what vibes come from us?</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">Throughout John Gzowski's sound design includes recordings of Elvis in conversation interspersed with snippets of his songs. Elvis&nbsp;talks about influences on his life, his relationship to his mother and other private thoughts.&nbsp;His need for privacy contrasts with the uncomfortable feelings&nbsp;he has of being a success,</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">A thought-provoking meditative work well-performed by the dancers.</span></span></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:14px;">The Man In Black</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:14px;">Choreography James Kudelka</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:14px;">Dancers: Erin Poole, Luke Garwood, Tyler Gledhill, Daniel&nbsp;McArthur</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">The Man In Black is totally different. A shorter piece in which the dancers, one woman and three men, perform six entire songs sung by Johnny Cash.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">They are decked out in Western style clothing complete with cowboy boots.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">Their movements are a high-adrenalin charged blend of country dance including square dance, step dancing and line.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">There is a fierceness and desperation in their interpretation. They are always linked together in some way. Muscular arms pulling each other forward, back and around, shaped as if driven by a compelling force within in addition to the music without. Has the feel that they are bound together in loneliness and isolation.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">Erin Poole is the only woman in it. This fact and the way she is repeatedly lifted and swung around create a mood of testoserone-driven violence.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">The climax is electrifying in its intensity. They move in waves towards us. Both the music and their movements permeate our bodies so intense are they.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">A really effective ending to a superbly danced work.</span></span></p>
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</div></div></div>Thu, 17 May 2018 01:15:56 +0000Beverley Daurio512 at http://evidanceradio.com/homehttp://evidanceradio.com/home/reviews/2018/elvis-man-black#commentsOpera Atelier's The Return of Ulysseshttp://evidanceradio.com/home/reviews/2018/opera-ateliers-return-ulysses
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><img alt="" src="/home/sites/default/files/reviews/images/evidancereview--ulysses22220180418201449-8b615da6-me.jpg" style="width: 550px; height: 367px;" title="Return of Ulysses"></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><span style="font-size:22px;"><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">The Return of Ulysses</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Opera Atelier Presentation</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Featuring Kresimir Spicer as Ulysses and Mireille Lebel as Penelope</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Music: Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra conducted by David Fallis</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Dancers: Atelier Ballet</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Choreographer: Jeannette Lajeunesse Zing</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Elgin Theatre, 189 Yonge Street<br>April 17-18 2018</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Reviewed by Ted Fox</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">The Opera Atelier production of The Return of Ulysses features dancers from the Atelier Ballet. They come from a variety of dance backgrounds, including contemporary dance and ballet. Many have been with the company for years,&nbsp;Jeremy Naismith since 1986.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">The Return of Ulysses begins with a prologue in which Ulysses bemoans suffering mortals who are subjected to the whims of Time, Fortune and Love.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">Penelope laments the non-return of Ulysses after five&nbsp;years in Troy. Frustrated suitors compete for her hand in marriage. They set up an entertainment in which they will present her with expensive gifts, each trying to outdo the other.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">Choreographer Jeannette Lajeunesse Zing's choreography is based upon Late Renaissance and Early Baroque eras. In the suitors'&nbsp;entertainment, the dancers'&nbsp;movement consists of the male dancers leaping in awesome scissored leg extensions. All stamp their feet, clap and and use castanets and finger cymbals.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">At another point the women become Naiads, displaying Ulysses' treasures. They form a frieze, moving together, backs to us in a wall, back and forth. Their billowing dresses twirl splashing out bright resplendent shimmering color including yellow, green blue and yellow.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">Closes with a rousing celebratory dance over which Jupiter (Kevin Skelton) appears on a mechanical cloud sprinkling sparkling confetti vaudeville-like over all.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">Throughout are hilarious innuendos. One refers to the suitors as "shafts of love tipped with gold".</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">Many parts verge on absurdity, including the irritating yet funny reaction to Ulysses when he does return. Face to face with his undisguised presence Penelope&nbsp;expresses doubts that it is really him.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">Kresimir Spicer as Ulysses tonally conveys pathos in the beginning, gradually opening up in emotional outbursts of joy.&nbsp;Mezzo-Soprano Mereille Lebel as Penelope vocally embodies her anxiety and frustration re Ulysses non-arrival and having to thwart her suitors' constant advances.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">Soprano Meghan Lindsay excels as Minerva, her red lips ovalled into roboust voaclizations. Even at one point effectively transforming into a shepherd boy</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">Tenors Michael Taylor and Kevin Skelton provide comic relief as two of the suitors.&nbsp;The third Bass-Baritone Douglas Williams creates tension by his aggressively macho and threatening violent approaches to Penelope.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">Set Designer Gerard Gauci's painted sets are evocative, becoming scarely present when sharp lightning flashes and loud claps of thunder announce the gods, as per usual in operas, meddling in these humans' affairs.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">All is heightened by the nuanced interpretation of Monteverdi's score by the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra conducted by David Fallis.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">Driector Marshall Pynkoski gives us a satisfying psychologically dramatic production fused with comic moments and tension.</span></span></p>
<p><img alt="" src="/home/sites/default/files/reviews/images/evidancereview--ulysses111--20180418200024-16d71852-me.jpg" style="width: 550px; height: 367px;" title="Dancers of the Atelier Ballet in Return of Ulysses"></p>
</div></div></div>Sun, 06 May 2018 18:46:35 +0000Beverley Daurio511 at http://evidanceradio.com/homehttp://evidanceradio.com/home/reviews/2018/opera-ateliers-return-ulysses#commentsAlone Together at The Citadelhttp://evidanceradio.com/home/reviews/2018/alone-together-citadel
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><img alt="" src="/home/sites/default/files/reviews/images/evidancereview--alonetogether111WangPhotosbyFrancescaChudnoff.jpg" style="width: 500px; height: 334px;" title="Naishi Wang photographed by Francesca Chudnoff"></p>
<p><span style="font-size:20px;"><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Alone Together</span></strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Solos by Jane-Alison McKinney / Naishi Wang</span><br><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">The Citadel<br>Ross Centre For Dance<br>Mimi Herrndorf Studio Theatre,&nbsp;April 11-14 2018</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Reviewed by Ted Fox</span></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>Taking Breath</strong></p>
<p>Choreography &amp; Performance Naishi Wang</p>
<p>In his program notes, Wang states that he is exploring breath as a form of communication.</p>
<p>His hands, palms facing his body, slide down his face and over his eyes;&nbsp;then, palms cupped together, he releases his breath into them like blowing away seeds or an insect.</p>
<p>His body becomes semaphoric, suggesting tai chi meditation and other movements impelled by varying modulations of breathing and vocalization. Some come from deep within, molding the body into a visual expression of the release of painful memories. Others become a preparation for his walking towards us, confronting us, staring, lips puckered into kisses accompanied by sucking sounds.</p>
<p>At two points he leaves the stage through a doorway.&nbsp;We hear off stage his breath creating rasping and gasping noises. As if he is in death throes. His hands clasp the door frame. Falls face down onto the stage. For me, even though his physical presence was not there I&nbsp;could see him.</p>
<p>Wang's body language is compelling and at times emotional. Too many repetitive movements for me became anticlimaxes, creating a disconnect from this expressionistic body language. A shorter running time would have created a tighter more fully involved experience.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The lighting design at times hyper illuminates his body and pulsating breaths, or dims and accentuates his breath's voice.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="/home/sites/default/files/reviews/images/evidancereview--alonetogether222janealisondressPhotobyFrancescaChudnoff.jpg" style="width: 500px; height: 334px;" title="Jane-Alison McKinney photographed by Francesca Chudnoff"></p>
<p><strong>There She Was</strong></p>
<p>Choreography &amp; Performance Jane-Alison McKinney</p>
<p>Jane-Alison's piece is divided into two segments. Her tall figure is suggestive of a statuesque goddess. She moves to sweeping music that seems to propel her forward, then works&nbsp;against her. A sense of breaking through a barrier. And at the end, liberation. Fragile. Human.&nbsp;</p>
<p>In the second part she herself creates impediments to her movements by putting on a dress and a pair of black high heels. Turning her body image into a stereotyped fashion statement. Hobbled by this footwear she arduously pushes her body forward, legs twisted an distorted</p>
<p>At the end she talks to us about living in a crazy world. Yet convincing herself all is fine. "I mean we are, we're here. We have a roof over our heads."&nbsp;And goes on to say that life can be overwhelming and all of us need an escape--get dressed up, drink, smoke, read or become someone else. "What matters is that sometimes you have to put your blinders on. Forget everything else, and jump. And it can be really good--it can be fun."</p>
<p>McKinney reverses these sections so this last becomes a There She Is. The other what she could have been. As McKinney's recorded voice says just before first part begins: "We probably shouldn't end it like this."</p>
<p>An ironic, thoughtful and disturbing beautifully choreographed work.</p>
</div></div></div>Mon, 23 Apr 2018 18:33:20 +0000Beverley Daurio510 at http://evidanceradio.com/homehttp://evidanceradio.com/home/reviews/2018/alone-together-citadel#commentsHanna Kiel's Chasing the Pathhttp://evidanceradio.com/home/reviews/2018/hanna-kiels-chasing-path
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><img alt="" src="/home/sites/default/files/reviews/images/evidancereview--Hanna%20Kiel.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 400px;" title="Chasing the Path-- photo by Sam So"></p>
<p><strong><span style="font-size:20px;"><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height:115%">Chasing the Path</span></span></span></strong></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Choreographed and directed in collaboration with the dancers by Hanna Kiel</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height:115%">Performed by Luke Garwood, Ryan Lee, David Norsworthy, Kelly Shaw</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height:115%">Lighting designed by Oz Weaver</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height:115%">Set design by Joe Pagnan</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height:115%">Composition by Greg Harrison</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height:115%">Human Body Expression</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height:115%">DanceWorks at the Fleck Dance Theatre, Toronto</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height:115%">March 15-17 2018</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height:115%">Reviewed by Beverley Daurio</span></span></span></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><span style="font-size:15.0pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:&quot;Adobe Garamond Pro&quot;,serif">The rooms and houses in our dreams are, according to the gestalt psychologist Fritz Perls, expressions and projections of our own psyches. It is a trope of theatre to use interiors of houses—a famous Broadway version of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman used a house in the shape of the main character’s head, open at the front—as representations of obsessive thoughts or imagination or memory, or a combination of all of these. Hanna Kiel’s living room set for Chasing the Path quickly seems familiar, dreamlike and imaginary.</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:15.0pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:&quot;Adobe Garamond Pro&quot;,serif">The piece is framed dramatically&nbsp;by the dated living room with its curtained window; by three characters who pose from time to time as if in a painting; by rising music that sounds like small bells, a glockenspiel, or high notes on a piano; by costumes that could be worn by guests on their way to a wedding or a funeral; and by the disembodied voice of an older woman, invoking memories in poetic phrases. Her voice is warm but sad, caring but distant. She seems dismayed, and surprised, by something she laments, barely able to keep hold of fragments of whatever has happened: “the smell of a wet sweater,” “the lost event…”</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:15.0pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:&quot;Adobe Garamond Pro&quot;,serif">The green door of the living room to one side opens and admits a fourth dancer/character, whose presence—ghostly? or remembered?—upsets the other three dancers’ calm demeanour and tips the show into ornately danced energy.</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:15.0pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:&quot;Adobe Garamond Pro&quot;,serif">Soon the furniture has been turned on its sides and pushed back out of the way—another reference to past, old-time habits-- and the dancers have traded their more formal clothes for t-shirts and khakis. The show is permeated by a sad nostalgia. The theatrical elements are like bookends and contain and hold the piece, in a hermetic way emotionally and in terms of story: Chasing the Path feels like a closed system.</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:15.0pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:&quot;Adobe Garamond Pro&quot;,serif">Throughout this piece, the dance is exquisite, magical and intricate. Each dancer, whether gesturing with isolations or moving full-bodied, arms and legs extended, whether in tender and sensitive duet, in combinations, or in solo, draws and holds space with power and just the right amount of energy. This control feels social, as if the work is exploring the emotions raging beneath the calm of a family gathering. It is hard to describe how precise yet fluid the movement is. There are recurring themes—quick alterations in pacing, swift synchronizations, hands held up in the air, fingers moving as if playing the piano, awkward stumbles, falling-walks that drift across the stage, and a constant attention to balance, in the sense that positions teeter and tend crookedly just off the upright. </span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:15.0pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:&quot;Adobe Garamond Pro&quot;,serif">The lighting shifts from gentle washes to square spotlight shapes that focus attention and change the perspective, to wide stripes of light that contain the dancers. Greg Harrison’s variegated and wide-ranging soundscape uses, among other instruments, bass, cello, piano, and the sound of children playing. The score is an ardent partner and supporter of the movement, shifting from hard guitar twang to tentative and delicate bell tings that linger around a duet between Ryan Lee (the guest/ghost) and Kelly Shaw, to mysterious melody for the elegant movement of Luke Garwood, to a rousing pounding percussive rock beat during a long and particularly challenging and beautiful solo by David Norsworthy. </span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:15.0pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:&quot;Adobe Garamond Pro&quot;,serif">As the show comes to a close, the older woman’s voice returns briefly, the furniture is righted, and Kelly Shaw performs a long, internally focused solo. It is as if balance has returned, and she can dance by herself now.</span></span></span></p>
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</div></div></div>Wed, 28 Mar 2018 01:59:40 +0000Beverley Daurio509 at http://evidanceradio.com/homehttp://evidanceradio.com/home/reviews/2018/hanna-kiels-chasing-path#commentsHe Who Fallshttp://evidanceradio.com/home/reviews/2018/he-who-falls
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><img alt="" height="450" src="/home/sites/default/files/reviews/images/evidancereview--ACTUALhe-who-falls.jpg" width="600"></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:22px;"><strong>He Who Falls</strong></span><br>Conceived, directed and staged by Yoann Bourgeois<br>Performers: Julien Cramillet, Dimitri Jourde (alternating with Jean-Baptiste André), Elise Legros, Jean-Yves Phuong, Francesca Ziviani, Marie Vaudin</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">March 1-4 2018, Bluma Appel Theatre, Toronto</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Reviewed by Ted Fox</span></p>
<p>Yoann Bourgeois, artistic director of Compagnie Yoann Bourgeiois, conceived and directed He Who Falls. He is an acrobat, actor, juggler and dancer.</p>
<p>He Who Falls is the English translation of the original French title Celui qui tombe which actually translates as The One Who Falls. It is not gender specific.</p>
<p>The set design consists of a mechanized platform/raft that represents our planet, our world, our society in which all are striving to survive whatever is thrown at them-- whether it be wars, nature or just being alive. All must stick together as a group. It's all for one and one for all. In the end they are left hanging and drop one by one.</p>
<p>As this production is from France It could be inspired by French painter Theodore Gericault and his famous work, Raft of the Medusa. This painting powerfully portrays the aftermath in 1816 of the wreck of a French frigate in which a raft had to be built for over 100 people to survive. This painting is displayed in the Louvre. The text on their website states that this "painting stands as a synthetic view of human life abandoned to its fate." For me this exactly sums up the content of this piece.</p>
<p>The performers are not choreographed but react to the centrifugal force of&nbsp;the mechanized platform. Their agility, physical strength, coordination and timing are awesome. They spin, move and interlock, while the set moves:&nbsp;swaying backwards, forwards and pushed around constantly by gravity changes. It spins like a planet in orbit or a raft snared in a whirlpool. Or lurching and tilting back and forth in a storm.</p>
<p>A woman runs and leaps over the others splayed on the surface as it constantly spins and tilts, never falling or missing a step. It looks so easy to do as she never flags for an instant.</p>
<p>Two figures wearing headlights appear in the dark beneath and dismantle the rotation device. The platform is now grounded yet still hanging from cables.The performers push the platform up and over. As it returns they wait, standing till the last second, and roll under it as it straightens. One waits too long&nbsp;and seems to be hit full force. Others jump and hang on the sides.</p>
<p>The lighting design highlights their facial expressions so we can easily read them. This unspoken facial dialogue includes, What do we do now? Are you dropping now or me? What is going on here? Oh, no, not again! There is humour here as there is in the whole piece.</p>
<p>It's also brightly luminous at times, turning what happens into a painting. They move up a 45 degree angle till&nbsp;their shadows move&nbsp;behind like truncated crabs. Many times the platform radiates a golden glow, its texture and surface glistening like an abstract painting. Occasionally one leaves the group and goes it alone,&nbsp;walking to the edge, his weight causing the platform to tilt down with him. The others adjust to the new gravity.</p>
<p>The music selection is a mix of classical, pop and seemingly improvised polyphonic operatic vocalization. This amid the sounds of the creaking floor and the whirring machine sounds are really effective, including&nbsp;an amusing use of&nbsp;Frank Sinatra crooning "I did it my way."</p>
<p>This show skillfully fuses contemporary dance with circus arts to create a highly entertaining and somewhat political production.</p>
</div></div></div>Fri, 16 Mar 2018 01:39:02 +0000Beverley Daurio508 at http://evidanceradio.com/homehttp://evidanceradio.com/home/reviews/2018/he-who-falls#commentsMinor Matter at the Progress Festival: presented by Toronto Dance Community Love-Inhttp://evidanceradio.com/home/reviews/2018/minor-matter-progress-festival-presented-toronto-dance-community-love
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><img alt="" src="/home/sites/default/files/reviews/images/evidancereview--mm_pressimage6_c_MarthaGlenn.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 401px;" title="Minor Matter-- Corey Scott-Gilbert, Ligia Lewis, Tiran Willemse-- photo by Martha Glenn"></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><span style="font-size:22px;"><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height:115%">Minor Matter</span></span></strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:14.5pt"><span style="line-height:115%">Production, concept and choreography by Ligia Lewis</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:14.5pt"><span style="line-height:115%">With Corey Scott-Gilbert, Ligia Lewis, Tiran Willemse (in creation with Hector Thami Manekehla and Jonathan Gonzalez)</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:14.5pt"><span style="line-height:115%">Curated and presented by Toronto Dance Community Love-In</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:14.5pt"><span style="line-height:115%">Progress Internationl Festival of Performance and Ideas, Theatre Centre, Toronto</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:14.5pt"><span style="line-height:115%">February 16-18, 2018</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:14.5pt"><span style="line-height:115%">Reviewed by Beverley Daurio</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14.5pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:&quot;Adobe Garamond Pro&quot;,serif">Minor Matter, the program explains, “is the second part of a trilogy (BLUE, RED, WHITE) performed by three dancers.” The influences and cultural waves involved in this show include the Dominican Republic, the US, and Germany.</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14.5pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:&quot;Adobe Garamond Pro&quot;,serif">We enter the theatre to discover a well-lit audience section, and a dark stage, from which grey-white smoke billows. The smell is strong and the air is dense with floating, bitter clouds that assault our eyes and lungs.</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14.5pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:&quot;Adobe Garamond Pro&quot;,serif">The performers (Corey Scott-Gilbert, Ligia Lewis, and Tiran Willemse), it seems, have also been levelled by this miasma. As lights at the top-back of the stage brighten, their shapes appear, angular and still—three people made vague and geometrically abstract by their uncomfortable positions and the dimness and acrid, fogged air. Then Ligia Lewis'&nbsp;voice recites these lines:</span></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span style="line-height:16.0pt"><span style="font-size:13.0pt"><span style="font-family:&quot;Verdana&quot;,sans-serif">I will like to turn you inside out and step into your skin</span></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span style="line-height:16.0pt"><span style="font-size:13.0pt"><span style="font-family:&quot;Verdana&quot;,sans-serif">To be, that sober shadow in the mirror of indifference</span></span></span>...</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:.0001pt">&nbsp;</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span style="line-height:16.0pt"><span style="font-size:13.0pt"><span style="font-family:&quot;Verdana&quot;,sans-serif">And because you shift, you shift, you shift and shift</span></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span style="line-height:16.0pt"><span style="font-size:13.0pt"><span style="font-family:&quot;Verdana&quot;,sans-serif">I can tell you cringe to see the hypnosis of your own silence</span></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:.0001pt">&nbsp;</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span style="line-height:16.0pt"><span style="font-size:13.0pt"><span style="font-family:&quot;Verdana&quot;,sans-serif">For I am the last tomb of an invisible age of the dead</span></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span style="line-height:16.0pt"><span style="font-size:13.0pt"><span style="font-family:&quot;Verdana&quot;,sans-serif">I am the first to spread the resilience of resurrection</span></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span style="line-height:16.0pt"><span style="font-size:13.0pt"><span style="font-family:&quot;Verdana&quot;,sans-serif">[Opening lines of “Dreamtalk,” by Nigerian poet Remi Raji]</span></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:.0001pt">&nbsp;</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14.5pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:&quot;Adobe Garamond Pro&quot;,serif">The work proceeds, not with narrative, but in pulses of sections. As the smoke clears a little, we can see that the dancers are dressed as if for athletic training, in cross trainers, gym shorts and workout tops. Training, working out, military movement and marching drums drive the front of the action. </span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14.5pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:&quot;Adobe Garamond Pro&quot;,serif">Rampage. Eruption. Toxicity: the smoke thickens and wanes and clouds up again throughout the show. Does this refer to Hell, to war, the burn-clearing of land, to decimation of territory? Is fire and brimstone what the artists are depicting as surrounding dance and by extension aesthetics these days? Do I understand the references the piece is making? Some yes; many, I don’t think so. This is a constantly shifting and complex piece, where there is little time to sit back; the audience is challenged to keep up. The soundscape moves rapidly between baroque music, opera, military, and contemporary sounds. </span></span></span></p>
<p><img alt="" src="/home/sites/default/files/reviews/images/evidancereview--mm_pressimage5_c_MarthaGlenn.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 383px;" title="Minor Matter-- Corey Scott-Gilbert, Ligia Lewis, Tiran Willemse-- photo by Martha Glenn"></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14.5pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:&quot;Adobe Garamond Pro&quot;,serif">Are we looking at the ruins of hegemonic culture and a nascent return to healthy culture, or a breaking down of old orders? The program suggests that the show is also about the theatre’s elements—foundational and material. Elements of colonialism and contemporary power structures are constantly implied in this piece. The soundscape charges in and out, rapidly moving between cultural memes, baroque to marching to a performer’s voice explaining how to protest—this is “Bitch 101,” he says. The sound provides the base for segments of highly active dance and periods of inaction that resemble stupour and exhaustion. The movement is intense, powerful and executed with precision by the dancers. They are also highly expressive—confronting and challenging the audience, facing us from a couple of feet away, with strangely ambiguous demeanours—is this frustration, anger, feelings of violence, a desire to convey overwhelming memories? What is constantly clear is the performers’ command of the stage and the theatre that they maintain at a high pitch throughout the show.</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14.5pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:&quot;Adobe Garamond Pro&quot;,serif">The lighting is also integral, blasting from blackout to black light, from dim to full stage light. One sequence is performed in hard red light, and red lasers are used to strong effect, pointing out in shining arrays that in part target the audience.</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14.5pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:&quot;Adobe Garamond Pro&quot;,serif">From the theatre world, there are shades of Handke here, and Osborne—and many references not in my cultural vocabulary. The audience is assaulted—constantly by the smoke (eyes and lungs especially) throughout, and one worries about the dancers exerting themselves and breathing in this poisonous fog—and by the sense of societal breakdown, the shredding of meaning, and desperation within the piece. </span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14.5pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:&quot;Adobe Garamond Pro&quot;,serif">For a long while, the performers intermittently seek ways to engage with each other, whether running together, exercising, touching while lying on the floor evading the red lasers, even hugging. But in theme throughout are their attempts to make higher and higher pyramids with their three bodies— which attempts eventually fall into a randy but unsexual romp—and which are material manifestations of unfairness, of exploitation, of trying to put down the others by literally climbing over them and using their bodies as a platform. This process ends with them against the wall, then falling, then piled up and against audience seats in a corner of the theatre, where they struggle in ugly effort to maintain their imbalance.</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14.5pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:&quot;Adobe Garamond Pro&quot;,serif">What fights to be heard through this noise and movement is the performers’ expression of the human scale, art, connection and love. Here are discipline, focus, belief, power, enchantment. Minor Matter is like a poem; its ocean of surface, texture and expansive exploration—in spite of the limitations of the stage itself— implying depths of hope.</span></span></span></p>
<p><i><span style="font-size:14.5pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:&quot;Adobe Garamond Pro&quot;,serif">[Research thanks to Ted Fox.]</span></span></span></i></p>
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</div></div></div>Tue, 06 Mar 2018 02:36:37 +0000Beverley Daurio507 at http://evidanceradio.com/homehttp://evidanceradio.com/home/reviews/2018/minor-matter-progress-festival-presented-toronto-dance-community-love#commentsJordan Tannahill's Declarationshttp://evidanceradio.com/home/reviews/2018/jordan-tannahills-declarations
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><img alt="" src="/home/sites/default/files/reviews/images/evidancereview--declarations--moving111.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 401px;" title="Declarations--Philip Nozuka, Jennifer Dahl, Liz Peterson, Danielle Baskerville, Robert Abubo-- Photo by Alejandro Santiago"></p>
<p><strong><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height:115%">Declarations</span></span></span></strong></p>
<p><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height:115%">Written and directed by Jordan Tannahill</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height:115%">Performed by Robert Abubo, Danielle Baskerville, Jennifer Dahl, Philip Nozuka and Liz Peterson</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height:115%">Lighting design by Kimberly Purtell</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height:115%">Vocal compositions by Philip Nozuka with the ensemble</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height:115%">Canadian Stage/Lower Berkeley Street Theatre, Toronto</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height:115%">January 26 to February 11, 2018</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height:115%">Reviewed by Beverley Daurio</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:&quot;Adobe Garamond Pro&quot;,serif">The stage of the Lower Berkeley Street Theatre is open to the brick walls—no curtains or backdrop, adorned only by the walled-in windows of what used to be a church. Our sightlines are clear. Four long fluorescent lights hang from the ceiling, perpendicular to us, and shine down on a stage floor devoid of props and furniture, except for a large square of luminous white plastic—maybe 15 by 15 feet—that is the playing area. This array is consciously artificial and immediately sets up a contrast between the technical and the human. There is no comfort in this glare. The set creates the aura of a graphics light table used to cut and organize images, of display cases for exotic avocadoes or Gucci purses, of greenhouses, of sterile medical clinics. It is not playful; it promises hard work. This could have been ironic, but thankfully it is not. It is surefooted and brave.</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:&quot;Adobe Garamond Pro&quot;,serif">This uncompromising light shines up and shines down, and into this bright square runs Liz Peterson, in a loose sweatshirt, brown pants and black shoes. Peterson can see a large screen onto which the spoken text is projected (the audience can only see this screen by a neck-twisting turn in the seat). In Jordan Tannahill’s conception, the text is a score, something like what a musician would read, except in this case the dancer/actors recite (or occasionally read) the text aloud, while improvising gestures or movements that parallel, evoke, argue with or create tension against the text.</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:&quot;Adobe Garamond Pro&quot;,serif">In an active, modulated voice, Peterson begins to speak, accompanying her words with a semaphore of gestural meaning—clenched fists, falling rolls, friezes, fleeting tableaux—which appear and disappear, much like the moments of our days. Peterson is alone on stage, switching from madcap to solemn to manic, airplaning, miming a slap or caress, crying, writhing on the ground—for the first half hour or so of the show. </span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:&quot;Adobe Garamond Pro&quot;,serif">Declarations’ text operates on the conceit of “declarations”— the phrase “This is” precedes every statement for the majority of the play: “This is how I lie down; this is a car speeding; this is the hard part; this is time itself; this is an abandoned storefront…” The tension between the text’s extremes—“This is thirty seconds of your time.” “This is a dirty rag.” — replaces the traditional tension between characters, and the shape of the piece and its segments replaces standard dramatic development. Declarations is also a long poem. Tannahill reaches back into classic theatre, bringing poetry back into drama.</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:&quot;Adobe Garamond Pro&quot;,serif">The lighting never changes. There is no soundscape apart from the performers' voices. After a while, one understands the pattern, and the repetition of “This is,” despite the living energy of the improvised gestures—becomes a bit annoying and monotonous. But, isn’t tedium, with flashes of wonderment, what daily real life is like? It is magical how insistent that aspect of this highly stylized piece becomes.</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:&quot;Adobe Garamond Pro&quot;,serif">More performers are added to the stage until there are five (Peterson, and Robert Abubo, Danielle Baskerville, Jennifer Dahl and Philip Nozuka). They trade off or synchronize the production of gestures, atomized, seeming lonely. For the first fifty-five minutes or so, the text moves between the mundane and the profound, the sacred and the profane, the silly and the mortal, powerful meaning and the forgettably ephemeral. Tannahill stretches his phrases in huge arcs around experience, from intimate sexual moments to neutral observations, in the process limning a greater consciousness or sphere of existence: Tannahill’s existence. </span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:&quot;Adobe Garamond Pro&quot;,serif">Declarations left me hungry for specificity, individuality, and tactile particularity. The cosmic, impersonal, and pop-culture memes are entertaining, as is Tannahill’s powerful way with language, even within such constraints. The piece presents itself as utterly portable; we could be anywhere. There are no characters (though the dancers are highly differentiated from each other, and there are three women and two men). We do not get to know Tannahill, or his mother, beyond a brief and moving vignette about her, terminally sick, jogging down the street to the bus stop in her bathrobe, to bring him the phone he forgot at home. “This is her love,” says the text. In another moving sequence, the ensemble repeats a kind of humming howl, referring to a dog tied up in a back yard. Is the play talking about being afraid of real being, of real feeling? </span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:&quot;Adobe Garamond Pro&quot;,serif">The actor/dancer/performers are amazing and fairly quiescent for most of the show. They maintain a quiet watchful power; they are not transported. About twelve minutes before the end of the piece, they begin a choreographed, tightly sung, danced and acted song whose liveliness and intensity is startling. Perhaps derived from the Bob Dylan song “Shake, Shake, Momma,” this spiralling, synchronized, syncopated section is sensual, rhythmic, moving, sharp, impelling, and punches through the quiet surface of the show— demonstrating what these performers are capable of in ensemble work, as well as their emotional power. There is something here, too, about the difference between isolated drift, and conscious connection between people.</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:&quot;Adobe Garamond Pro&quot;,serif">Again and again, the play seems to ask us to consider, is this like life? Do we all spend so much time in quick forgettable gestures that we do not challenge ourselves or use our talents in ways that we could, letting time slip past? This is part of Declarations’ depth and seductive ambiguity—we don’t get any answers. Is this profound, or is it menial, dull and quotidian? Or maybe it is both, and Tannahill is uncovering the hidden essential energy that flows through every moment of every day, powerfully capturing the essence of contemporary dissociated being and its confrontations with mortality.</span></span></span></p>
<p><img alt="" src="/home/sites/default/files/reviews/images/evidancereview--declarations222.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 401px;" title="Declarations-- Philip Nozuka, Jennifer Dahl, LIz Peterson, Danielle Baskerville, Robert Abubo-- Photo by Alejandro Santiago"></p>
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</div></div></div>Mon, 19 Feb 2018 22:30:03 +0000Beverley Daurio506 at http://evidanceradio.com/homehttp://evidanceradio.com/home/reviews/2018/jordan-tannahills-declarations#commentsBrodsky/Baryshnikovhttp://evidanceradio.com/home/reviews/2018/brodskybaryshnikov
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><img alt="" src="/home/sites/default/files/reviews/images/evidancereview--BrodskyBaryshnikov--PhotographerJanisDeinats.jpg" style="width: 550px; height: 366px;" title="Baryshnikov-- Photographer Janis Deinats"></p>
<p>Brodsky/Baryshnikov</p>
<p>Director:&nbsp;Alvis Hermanis</p>
<p>Actor: Mikhail Baryshnikov</p>
<p>Winter Garden Theatre, Toronto</p>
<p>January 24-28 2018</p>
<p>Reviewed by Ted Fox</p>
<p>Brodsky/Baryshnikov is a tribute to Baryshnikov's friend, Russian poet Joseph Brodsky, who died in 1996. Brodsky was exiled and emigrated to the United States in 1972. Baryshnikov defected to the West where he met Brodsky.</p>
<p>The set design by Kristine Jurjane consists of an art nouveau grayish stone conservatory. Two cherubs stand on guard to the right and left of the entrance.&nbsp;The inside is gutted.&nbsp;There is a bucket of paint, and bare light bulbs with exposed wiring suspended from the ceiling. There are other indications of a restoration in progress. A sense of the loss of the vanishing old world being replaced by the new, or a metaphor for the ruin of his body wracked by age.</p>
<p>Baryshnikov reads or recites Brodsky's poetry while sitting on one of two benches located on the narrow area in front of the conservatory. Nearby, on another bench, there is an anachronistic reel-to-reel recorder that appears to turn on and off on its own, playing&nbsp;some poems that Brodsky had recorded.</p>
<p>Baryshnikov reacts to these recorded recitations with compelling imagistic movements. These take place in the conservatory. We look through the paneled glass windows to watch. Our view is blocked by the panels, making his movements segmented and somewhat ghostly.</p>
<p>He spins with arms and hands flowing outward and then folding inwards: "the emptiness around me like a ball." He becomes a butterfly, his crossed hands turning his fingers into fluttering wings. A stallion rearing upwards, his hooves loudly hitting the floor. In the entrance he sits on a chair, pants rolled up with feet, legs and torso exposed. Body splayed backwards in grotesque tormented poses, reflecting the last gasps of life. Reminded me of Christ lying at the foot of the cross or perhaps a Francis Bacon painting.</p>
<p>All this takes place in varying degrees of bright light. A fuse box emits crackling sparks, causing the bulbs to go on and off, suggesting the struggle to maintain life on the brink of death.</p>
<p>Brodsky's poems are recited in Russian. The surtitles emerge and move upwards as if embedded in the wall above and released. The translations, by Jamey Gambrell, are vividly imagistic and rife with very black humour. Brodsky's reading has a forceful ritualistic cadence to it that is hypnotic to listen to.</p>
<p>Baryshnikov starts reading in a barely heard whisper. Gradually words become heard, as if initially he is reading to himself. As he progresses, his body becomes agitated. He moves back and forth.</p>
<p>His poetry speaks of the passage of time, the wasting away of the body to the point where identity is erased bit by bit. Death is depicted as a black stallion looking for a rider.There are vivid descriptions of this process and resultant physical decomposition. All depicted with black humour.</p>
<p>There is a very low choir heard on and off throughout, sounding like it is leaking in through a portal in time. It is composed by Jim Wilson and is entitled God's Chorus of Crickets. It adds a spirituality to this production. I was amazed to find that the piece was composed using the digitally modified sounds of real live crickets, and was designed by the composer to mirror the length of the average lifespan of a human being.</p>
<p>This is a challenging and deeply personal production in which the vocalization of Brodsky's poetry, the evocative movement and striking visuals result in a very moving experience.</p>
<p>Note: If interested click on link below to hear the cricket chorus.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFguHRdUlk8" target="_blank">https:<wbr>//www.<wbr>youtube.<wbr>com/watch?v=<wbr>uFguHRdUlk8<wbr></a>&nbsp;..</p>
</div></div></div>Mon, 29 Jan 2018 17:39:44 +0000Beverley Daurio505 at http://evidanceradio.com/homehttp://evidanceradio.com/home/reviews/2018/brodskybaryshnikov#commentsOlder & Reckless #40-- Moonhorse Dance Theatrehttp://evidanceradio.com/home/reviews/2017/older-reckless-40-moonhorse-dance-theatre
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><img alt="" src="/home/sites/default/files/reviews/images/evidancereview--olderandreckless--MappinandFirth_0.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 400px;" title="Older &amp; Reckless-- Jane Mappin and Daniel Firth-- photo by Tamara Romanchuk"></p>
<p><span style="font-size:24px;"><strong>Older &amp;&nbsp;Reckless #40</strong></span></p>
<p>Artistic Director: Claudia Moore</p>
<p>Moonhorse Dance Theatre in association with Harbourfront Centre</p>
<p>Harbourfront Centre Theatre, Toronto</p>
<p>November 10-11, 2017</p>
<p><strong>REVIEWED BY BEVERLEY DAURIO</strong></p>
<p>Founder and artistic director Claudia Moore has been mounting the Older &amp; Reckless series of shows, featuring older dancers and choreographers, for seventeen seasons now. In a relentlessly youthful world, especially in the physical arts like dance, Older &amp; Reckless provides an outlet and showcase of the work and bodies of older dancers, and demonstrates many things about beauty, intelligence, love of art and expression and many ineffable elements in the process.</p>
<p>Older &amp; Reckless #40 was constructed of two acts with an intermission; each of the acts consisted of a longer work (or excerpt) bracketed by two shorter works, for a total of six pieces for the evening.</p>
<p>“Tell Everyone” is a moving tribute to a young Portland, Oregon, man who stood up for young Muslim girls against a white supremacist who then killed him. As he lay dying, Taliesin Meche asked the stranger comforting him to “Tell everyone on this train I love them.” Peter Chin has created a joyous work that is less programmatic than symbolically resonant with the real events. Five professional and a score of amateur dancers fill the stage with the train passengers, forming and reforming into duets and groups to the music of traditional Tibetan and Papua New Gunea folk songs.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="/home/sites/default/files/reviews/images/evidancereview--olderandreckless--PeterChin_0.jpg" style="width: 450px; height: 300px;" title="Peter Chin's &quot;Tell Everyone&quot;-- photo by Tamara Romanchuk"></p>
<p>“Ils m’ont dit” (loosely translatable as “They told me”) is choreographed and performed by Jane Mappin and Daniel Firth. It is a major stand-alone piece with precise, varied movement, partnering and duets and solos, all reflecting struggles with mental health and celebrating the dignity of sufferers. Dressed in simple black, the performers execute difficult and fine movements with precision and elegance, even while clearly demonstrating pain and the hard work of seeking mental health.</p>
<p>Solo One was choreographed and danced by Heidi Latsky to propulsive music by Chris Brierly. Latsky is isolated in light that is not a spotlight but seems to seek her out and find her—she is dressed in a sleevless black top and loose black pants. The focus is on the movement of arms, out and around her body, with and against the music, twining and loosening, as she seems to shimmer in place, yet to be moving toward us at the same time. Elegant and &nbsp;sensual, Latsky slowly travels toward the centre front of the stage. There is something commanding and mesmerizing about this performance, despite its apparent simplicity.</p>
<p>“In Two Days a Man Can Change” is an excerpt from a longer dance-theatre work of the same name by Lesandra Dodson, based on writings by the mystery/thriller writer Elmore Leonard. It has a desert, cowboy motif, and is quite text heavy. The two performers, Ric Brown and Darryl Tracy, carry and evolve the masculine/macho competition and symbolic struggle of the two characters with panache. This work has a lovely capacity to be funny and dark at the same time, as the two men begin to seem as if one is good and one is evil; they threaten to kill each other; and then it seems that they might even be two sides of one person. The desert (projected on the back of the stage) also serves multiple symbolic functions—as stereotyped masculinity is often played out without nuance or emotion allowed. This is a sharp and effective exploration.</p>
<p>“The wound is the place where the light enters you” is an emotional, longer solo by Sashar Zarif, and is based on a quotation from Rumi, exploring the past lives we carry within ourselves. Zarif, in traditional Middle Eastern garb, is a powerful dancer and performer whose movements, from twirling to complex characterological body extensions and facial expressions evoke his past selves with elan and energy.</p>
<p>“Abiding” is a beautiful short balletic work, choreographed by Matjash Mrozewski for Evelyn Hart, former prima ballerina for the Royal Winnipeg&nbsp;Ballet. Simple, moving and emotionally complex, the piece begins with Hart sitting, dressed in a long, formal white gown by Anne Armit, in a chair to the back and left of the stage. When she begins to dance, in long, flowing movements that could be those of clouds or swans, it is as if she is freed to strength and flight, and she frees us in turn, watching. The formal music by Handel is perfect for the operatic and dramatic mood, and lifts the dancer and fills the space that could be, by turns, a street, a garden, or a ballroom. When Hart returns to the chair at the end of the piece, her stillness raises questions: was the dance her dream of moving? Did we only imagine her moving? Or is she showing us how to be free of stillness, in many ways, to leave the sedentary, get up from our real and symbolic chairs and enter life freely? This is a gorgeous, delightful work.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="/home/sites/default/files/reviews/images/evidancereview--olderandrecklessEvelynHart_0.jpg" style="width: 400px; height: 267px;" title="Older &amp; Reckless--Evelyn Hart-- photo by Tamara Romanchuk"></p>
<p>Moore has put together another powerful show. Wisdom and thoughtfulness permeate these pieces. There is more arm work than leg work, less extremity of physical display, and generally the choreography is less taxing. At the same time, it brings other qualities: a quiet sense of perseverance, and a depth of emotional expression that comes from decades of dedicated practice. Older &amp; Reckless #40 was a moving and fascinating cornucopia of enjoyments.</p>
</div></div></div>Wed, 29 Nov 2017 04:04:27 +0000Beverley Daurio504 at http://evidanceradio.com/homehttp://evidanceradio.com/home/reviews/2017/older-reckless-40-moonhorse-dance-theatre#commentsTriptyquehttp://evidanceradio.com/home/reviews/2017/triptyque
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:16px;"><img alt="" src="/home/sites/default/files/reviews/images/evidancereview--Triptyque--Nocturnes.jpg" style="width: 380px; height: 569px;" title="Triptyque--Nocturnes-- Photo by Alexandre Galliez"></span></span></p>
<p><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:16px;">Triptyque</span></span></strong></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:16px;">Created and Directed by&nbsp;Samuel Tétreault</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:16px;">Choreographers: Marie Chouinard, Victor Quijada, and Marcos Morau&nbsp;</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:16px;">Bluma Appel Theatre, Toronto</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:16px;">November 15-November 19 2017</span></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:16px;">Reviewed by Ted Fox</span></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">Triptyque is a presentation of The 7 Fingers (Les 7 Doigts), a prominent circus company in Quebec. For this show, company Co-Founder/Artistic Director Samuel Teheault intergrates dance with circus by inviting choreographers Marie Chouinard, Victor Quijada and Marcos Morau to create work with Doigts performers.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">In Anne &amp; Samuel, choreographer Marie Chouinard follows up on her 2005 production of&nbsp;Body Remix/Goldberg Variations, in which she experimented with gravity, using medical crutches to restrict dancers'&nbsp;movement.&nbsp;These appendages elongated arms and legs, transforming her dancers into alien-like creatures.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">Chouinard features two circus performers in a duet, that&nbsp;begins with Anne first appearing hanging strapped like a slab of meat from a bar hanging between two ropes. He takes her down, attaches crutches to her, and then interacts with her. The crutches imprison their bodies, creating an inhuman barrier between them. In the end, he removes material from his face that gave him a satyr-like look, and later&nbsp;they liberate themselves from the crutches, after turning round and round on their bodies as they copulate together.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">Choreographer Victor Quijada is co-founder of the breakdance company RUBBERBANDance. In Variations 9.81, his performers are eight hand balancers who, face down, grip wooden pommels atop movable poles. They skillfully move them from hole to hole which are scattered across the stage.&nbsp;The performers move the stands&nbsp;seamlessly as they switch poles or double up on them. Their legs, whether straight up or at an angle,&nbsp;act as if detached from their bodies ,undulating like insect antennas or like the fronds of underwater flora moving with the currents.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">Choreographer Marcos Marau begins his piece Nocturnes with a woman lying in bed asleep, then abruptly awakening. She is clothed in white as are the white uniformed figures who appear suddenly from under her bed and encircle her. The realization comes that she is in a hospital. Or hallucinating at home in her own bed? Is she mad? Reacting to her medications or off them? The bed sheets and pillows are white, too. Very cold and clinical. She encounters a variety of creatures. Among them-- a&nbsp;unicyclist, a crystal ball juggler, a few jogging as if suspended in air, and fish creatures dancing in a chorus line.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">Snowfakes fall. The bed becomes somewhat like a magic carpet floating upward and hanging suspended. At another point it is lifted up and facing us so we look down at it, in a nightmarish segment where hands come out of&nbsp;the mattress and grope and molest her. She reacts by twisting and turning.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">The overall effect of this is like watching an animated film, like those Betty Boop cartoons featuring shape changing characters that turn into a variety of creatures. The lighting and visual designs are quite cinematic.&nbsp;The hyper frenetic movement increases in intensity as we watch.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">Triptyque is fascinating, visually striking and expertly performed.</span></span></p>
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</div></div></div>Mon, 20 Nov 2017 20:33:50 +0000Beverley Daurio502 at http://evidanceradio.com/homehttp://evidanceradio.com/home/reviews/2017/triptyque#comments